Many, many years ago, Life, Death, and Man lived harmoniously alongside each other. They ate, drank, and laughed together. Until one day, Death grew jealous of Man's abundant Joy, and so at night, while the others were asleep, Death murdered Man and robbed him of his joy. Of course, Death was banished from the Earth, and Life fell in love with Man's son. Man's son was very happy with Life, and soon they were inseparable.
One hot summer day, as the sun prepared to set, Life saw a dark figure approach. He set out toward it, and slowly realized it was Death, only now he was dressed in a black cloak.
"Why have you returned?" asked Life. "What do you desire?"
"I come a long way," Death replied. "I have been made King of Purgatory, and the demons serve me."
"Do you wish to rule over the Earth as well?" said Life angrily. "Do you ****** me as you did Man?"
"Certainly not!" Death affirmed. "I wish to make a simple deal."
"What do you propose?" Life asked suspiciously.
Death smiled. "Let us join forces. Together we shall rob man of Joy, I in the Heavens and you on the Earth, and we shall divide the loot between ourselves!"
Life agreed. That night when Man's son was asleep, Life took his Joy. When he awoke in the morning, he saw that his Joy was gone, and realized that Life had betrayed him. A broken man, he hung himself. Of course, Man had no more Joy in Death than he did in Life. Until today, Man is alone in his pain, haunted by Death and betrayed by Life.

For Emma Ottinger “I put out (my stories) just because”

“just because”
that’s the best excuse you got girl?

cause be-ing
just
is a **** good one

way back in March
wrote a declaration^ to all those just
beginning with an iota of courage and
a good story telling
way of seeing and the
secret sauce-way
to spin my imagination in
my eye sockets
with their well words,
for I am a drinker of
the beaujolais firsts of the new grapes
of young poets

words welling springing from between
the oohs and ahs and the damns -
I wish I had wrote that...

so here’s a hero push - so many kinds of bread to
fill our baskets, please girl may I have some more?
so here’s to you - and the Great Plains that birthed you,
and the breadbasket of four poem/stories you poured out
that were so far from plain, how could you know of seas and sea foam and cobalt and mahogany human body parts?

and the speech patterns of waves that took me decades to learn?

use those “Jacob’s ladders between your fingers,”
“whistle me like a stray dog following,”
for that’s what “the kingpin of my flighty wits”
requires, for this old scribbler is now:

“firmly rooted for a girl who's bold enough
to crack the whip over her head if
ever went to war with myself.
A confidant that won't run,
won't offer half truth when
the whole of it
is all that actually matters.”

so write with that window light on and
wheat fields that can be reenvisioned as the gray-blue sea
from which I crawled out of croaking...
to read you rightly

6/25/18
10:25PM

Two aging message senders
and receivers, circumspect
men of reflective thoughts
and words spoken, written.
Wayfarers from divergent
oceans converging.

Both Harpooners of the
unexamined life, seekers
of truths and wisdom.
Kindred spirits different
and yet the same,
A spiritual awakening,
a brotherly bond in the making.

Both touched and renewed
by a voyage taken
upon a common sea
of curious self discovery.

~for those who will read this and weep~

the quiet ones,
the silent Job ones,
who quote not from the
Book of Lamentations,
but author their own,
based on-the-job experience

localized versions of cryptic elegiacs
accepting the wooden crosses borne,
stepping up to the
unrequested unforeseen,
then buried under, burnt alive,
yet never relieved by dying,
nailed by words, stronger than iron,
promises sworn, promises kept
with no ending date relief,
promises by and to themselves,
but not for themselves!

the wearers of crystal glass shackles,
adorned with decorative locks for which
no key did the maker make,
nor any divine creator
dare conceive an early release,
never no escape contemplated,
for the lock human, unrepentant unbreakable,
a decorative useless metaphor gesture,
a blunt “life *****” advertisement

I compose amidst a
bus pond of mismatched city folk,
a tapestry of ages colors and differing views on god/no god,
none would believe that as the bus sways me,
it’s in rhythm to holy choral music,
hundreds year old,
divinity masses and motets worships,
where one human can hide temporarily
a safe house,
to calm his questioning relentless
from the horrors of no answers,
for when the mind has no solution
to the rough and tumbling lives,
lived in glass shackled confinement,
the poets desperation equals theirs

summon eagles to transport these imprisoned,
but the shackled refuse,
I come to them but they wave me off,
I go crazy for once I was enslaved,
thirty years war that left devastation,
from which so many poems created

so I speak with heightened regard
of one who planned futures for others where his
non-existence was a founding father (ha!)

but the day came and
I was released by my own inactions,
but means nothing until a way to
away found
to release the yet bound early

got a couch, airline miles, hundred dollars
in my pocket and an unrelenting need
to save them, a consumption disease,
the glass shackled, at ease,
won’t rest till all are freed
this my creed
no one left behind

these cyber words do not mock
for they are unbounded, set free,
when
the flesh connects and the needs of the flesh
are stronger for they are in heart conceived

why I love certain men


it’s a raining and writing Saturday,
a washout for the beach visitors who chose their
calendar lottery tickets poorly

but hurrah and huzzah for the poet
in the no-sun-today-room with
steam collecting on his face from his 20 oz. Canadian mug,
the rest of him cozied neath a
wooly mohair knitted and tasseled blanket,
from a now naked and shivering alpaca goat in Turkey or Tibet

perhaps we’ll make a tiny dent
in the 1319 poems,
in the ‘sorta started to do’ list

****.
new one sneaks in demanding immediate satisfaction
and threatening my mind’s incarceration unless,
serviced and unleashed as the Frenchies say

Frites, immédiatement!: (french fries, now!)

I love most men; certain men more than others,
not because they are soft to the touch,
look great in thigh highs, can fix a backhoe,
lay hands on animals, just as they do upon their grandchildren,
or write better poetry than me,
because
they make me weep from zealous delight at
their capricious unprecedented constancy of their
honorable actions

they are soft to the core, which is itself
wrapped in a leather soldered steel,
which defines them by their self-questing constant,
asking themselves preface and postface,
doing it well, in between,

what is the honorable thing?

this honor idea of which writ previous
doesn’t dissolve - indeed grows crescendo stronger,
like the miracle of the Yom Kippurs rams horn
crying out to heavens at the concluding end  
on the holiest judgement day,
a shofar miracle for it inhumanly grows ever louder,
ceasing only when nightfall marks a new day begun,
reminding both sinners and saviour each,
to inquire of their colluding selves on this forgiveness-giving day,

what is the honorable thing?

some are borrowers and some lenders,
of anything, the substance or the whom matters not,
but the bonding bonfire from which the deal is done,
is of a uncharted organic chemical matter unrecognized
but millennium ancient


here I stop

the call to breakfast must be obeyed,
for it’s with lovely made, menu man-poet requested,
this is too an honorable thing to do,
and the 1319 half blood~half writs poking my eyes,
can be faced with new courage afterwards
on a perfect raining and writing Summer Saturday
for the next one hopefully and woefully

may not come till the September (Rosh Hashanah/Jewish New Year) when acorns fall

certain men will greet that fall Sabbath/ New Years Day,  
when Atonement begins, a ten day process to the final conclusion,
by asking of everything living and of every act human performed,
for the forgiveness requested inherent in the absolute bar setting of

what is the honorable thing?

which by the by,

is why I love certain women too...

and all who are honorable
will read this honorific and remain
clueless as to whom it is addressed...

oh god, I do so love that best!

what could signal honor even more...